Sunday, 31 October 2010

A few days ago, I ended up walking home in the rain. I had a heavy bag over my shoulder, a big bag with a couple of kilos of brisket in one hand and a gorgeous bunch of roses in the other. By the time I got home I was very soggy and a bit miserable. Luckily my roses seemed to enjoy the shower.

I had been worrying about what to do with the leftovers of a box of amaretti. They had been sitting in one of my stack of tins for a week or two and lost their oomph. I searched around trying to find a good recipe to use them up in. Nothing really caught my eye until I hit upon a recipe by Meeta of What's For Lunch Honey?: she makes a wonderful Raspberry Lemon Amaretti Cake.

Instead of making a cake, I decided to use Meeta's flavours and make muffins. I used my favourite blueberry muffin recipe as a base and came up with these. I decided to not complicate things by browning the butter as I do for the blueberry muffins - these are light and the gorgeous nuttiness would change that.

They gave my wet and miserable afternoon a touch of sunshine.

The amaretti and lemon gives the muffin a gorgeous yellow tone - these really are bright and sunny. The lashings of pink from the raspberries adds further cheeriness. They taste fantastic - I was really pleasantly surprised by how well they came out. They put a big smile on my face: I hope they do the same for you.

Amaretti and Raspberry Muffins
(Loosely adapted from this recipe which was from Joy the Baker. The flavours come from here.)

Preheat the oven to 190C. Melt the butter in a small saucepan then set aside to cool for a minute. Combine the flour, baking powder, lemon zest, and sugars in a bowl. Whisk the egg and milk into the butter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix till just combined. Add the raspberries and 25g of the amaretti and fold in gently. Put six cases into a muffin tin and divide the mixture between them. Top with the remaining crushed amaretti. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack.

4 comments:

Mmm I just made some compote meringue pots with plums, raspberries and amaretti crumbs so I already know the flavors go great together. There's lots of amaretti left over, too. Now I know how I can use them. Thanks!